P H I L I P M E M M E R Walk At first there’s nothing strange about the sight of children riding ten-speeds, weaving eights across the four-lane road, their loops so slow they have to drag a foot to keep from falling. But this is not some dare for lulls in traffic— here come their parents down the center line, and not at all like suicides or drunks but speaking casually, their gaze directed up the road a bit, towards the river. When was the last time semis shook the windows? Not recalling, we join the dazed parade that gathers in the brilliance of the street. How wide our road’s become, and how unknown, as if this weren’t a suburb of New York but some exotic ruin we are walking— each streak of oil, each shred of weathered trash radiates a sacramental calm. It’s heaven, someone laughs—where danger was, sunshine and stillness, actual wonder. How quick we are to join this quiet world; 250 ❚ The 2000s then what we mistook for the hush of a breeze becomes the swift-clear sound of water and we see it at last, the river above its banks and making way through yards, porches, cars—it’s coming as fast as we can run to what we love. The 2000s ❚ 251 ...